


Windows

by voids



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, F/M, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9954422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voids/pseuds/voids
Summary: How much does it take to disarm someone?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enjoyex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enjoyex/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cantigas de Amigo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7950523) by [Enjoyex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enjoyex/pseuds/Enjoyex). 



> I hope you like this, even if it isn't good enough. After all the joy you've given me so far with Cantigas de Amigo, this is the least I can do (and the fanart). 
> 
> And to casual readers, If you haven't read [Cantigas de Amigo](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7950523/chapters/18178834), you should, because it's a beautiful fic. It's a slow burn, it has MUSIC, and the characters are written gorgeously and very on point.

Ornstein stretched his arms, satisfied. The stubborn undead had been sent to the last bonfire they had rested at, and hopefully, they wouldn’t be foolish enough to come back for a triple, painful death. He knew it was best for them to return to the muck they came from.

“No human would have the right to lay a hand on the Lordvessel, even if the linking of the first flame required it.” Ornstein mustered frustratingly. Smough chuckled.

“Do not give yourself credit only because you were granted a special soul, dragon slayer.”

The knight waved a hand at the executioner before going back to his previous position.

He watched over the fog gate shielding the entrance. He hoped, whenever he looked at his blood-soaked cross spear, that the undead would not be just like many of _them_. Greedy creatures. Ambitious usurpers searching for a higher power. Those were the worst to deal with.

Or so he hoped.

She kept coming back, as if there was no tomorrow; as if she expected his strength to appease with just having to endure seeing her arrive once more. He did not understand why she was still resisting; did not she realize this was a losing battle? Two against one, and stronger no doubt. He was secured to protect the Lordvessel with his life, and even though her stubbornness had been dangerously close to make him laugh —something he had not been able to do for years—, he stood up, threw himself high and ready to bathe her in blood as many times as needed. Luckily, Smough seemed so willing to keep on his word, though Ornstein considered his company the most unpleasant.

The dragon slayer’s patience began to derail when she began uselessly throwing firebombs at them. It was bordering on humiliating. He dug his spear into her skull without much effort, making a macabre mess of torn flesh over the shimmering tiles. Maybe that would teach her a lesson.

At some point he saw her coming back, with her halberd and her shield always loyal to her, and Ornstein shouted aloud, fury seizing him: “Return from where you came!”, before his cross spear skewed her like a fish and blood covered the pure golden soil. Behind him, Smough’s laugh reverberated the room.

"What do you think is so funny?" Ornstein growled. He shook the spear in the air threateningly, hoping for Smough to remember who was the one still in charge.

The grotesque helmet hid Smough's expression, but Ornstein had been by his side long enough to know when the executioner's eyes creaked with gloat.

"I find it amusing that such a poor human can so easily rile you up, oh great dragon slayer." Smough sneered.

It was embarrassing how, even when he should have already gotten over it, Smough could be as irritating as centuries ago.

"What is it, Captain? Is your pride hurt?”

Ornstein clenched his fist. He wanted, very, very bad, to throw a bolt of lightning at the executioner and teach him some manners, but if for some reason he had been made captain it was thanks to his virtues such as respect, above all things. The knight turned his back on the executioner and went back to his usual position, not responding to Smough’s mocking speech that followed next.

The misty door shivered again, giving way to the undead. Ornstein heard Smough chuckle.

“Looks like this game is bound to carry on, huh.”

“Enough.” Ornstein grunted. The undead, who wore a helm and scarred robes, had already thrown herself in battle, this time going for Smough, who moved at a slower pace and whose hammer made the room shake under their feet. She was quick and agile, avoiding their attacks a bit esier than before... was she in possession of some kind of ring? He would have to kill her again to find out. 

The fight carried on for as long as they could manage, and to Ornstein's shock, the undead's weapon pierced Smough's armor, and the brute soon plummeted to the ground. _Fucking bastard_.

The undead collapsed, looking for an Estus flask that came out empty. Ornstein walked towards the fallen body of the executioner. He couldn't deny himself the pleasure he felt seeing him down with such disgrace. He felt tempted to give a vengeful kick to his side for all the humiliation he had put him in, but he was a better man. This would have to do: gently, he reached out and laid his hand on him with the purpose of absorbing what was left in Smough's soul, and get this all over with.

Something beyond himself made him pause the process; maybe it was the way the undead was writhing on the floor while her blood gushed out of her almost exaggeratedly. Or maybe what his ears were hearing.

She was singing.

A sweet, broken voice, weakened due to the state in which she was. The woman sang in a language the knight could not identify, yet it did not stop him from catching on the desperation she was trying to communicate. He removed his hand off Smough's armor, and approached her with hesitance, watching the human from his height as if contemplating an ant he had trampled on. Magic carried the song, and so did her voice. Up the lifts, Gwynevere’s illusion guarded the Lordvessel she so stubbornly had been trying to retrieve. But that voice... It was embracing him like a duvet, and now he no longer stood in an abandoned cathedral in the middle of a deserted city; nor was he wearing his leonine armor, no. Ornstein, now younger and dressed in light clothing, stepped on a floor of fresh grass. The atmosphere still smelled of rain, and the mighty river sounded abundant. The desire to wet his feet into the water, to do something jovial and melancholy as diving in and float for hours while he guessed the corporeal shapes of the clouds, was pressing. Desires he thought had been left beneath piles of mud and stone to never unearth them, were emerging from oblivion with shameful ease. His life as a knight and faithful noble courtier was yet long to come.

Someone called him. His mother. Ornstein ran to the house, and he found the woman sitting at a piano and preparing the score of her favorite song. She smiled warmly.

“Ornstein, do you wish to play?”

He nodded enthusiastically and sat down beside her, and then he snapped his fingers, making her mother laugh.

“How elegant! Some day you might become a famous musician in this realm. And even if you don’t, I'll always be proud of you. It is all I want you to know.”

Ornstein ran his fingerpads over the keys, searching for the notes that would give start to the melody. Then, he began to play. 

In his childhood dreams, he grew up tall and became a skilled pianist. He was often hired to play in private for the nobility. He would have not believed that he would grow up to become one of the most skillest dragon slayers the world would yet to meet. He would less have believed that Lord Gwyn himself would make him his most trusted knight. So in the meantime, he would keep practising the piano, savoring the music and losing himself in it, wishing that one day, perhaps, perhaps—

_"I wish..."_

Something pierced the flesh of his right foot. The tune ceased.

He was back to reality, in the cold, empty cathedral, his gaze fixed on a crimson-reddish floor. A dagger had pierced part of his boot until it had sunk into his skin and broken the bone. However, despite the pang of pain that subjected him, Ornstein did not scream nor flinch. The knight bent over and, with pursed lips, slowly pulled back the dagger only to realize that the shiny blade had been greased with something green and viscous.

Poison.

The undead dragged herself awkwardly across the floor, fumbling for the last dark sprite of humanity left in her travel bag. When she found it, she caged it in her hand as it tried to squeeze out of her grasp. Her small body absorbed a blinding light, and Ornstein knew his destiny was written. Something stirred deep, especially when the human stood up and spat at him with disdain, and the sweet, vulnerable voice he had listened to minutes ago sounded as venomous as the substance that was slowly spreading throughout his veins:

"Hollowness would have destroyed you, dragon slayer. What are you still resisting for?”

His knees failed, maybe because his body had gone too weak; perhaps because he himself had wanted it that way. A demon. She was a demon. There was no other explanation about her he could rationally think of.

She pointed at him with the halberd that had accompanied her at all time. "Do not you rather keep what little dignity you have left?"

With his knees on the floor, their heads were at the same height level. In spite of everything, his spear was still secured in his hand, and he could still use it in his advance.

Yet, he did not make an effort to harm her.

Ornstein laid down with his back across the dirtied floor, his breastplate moving up and down with every mouthful of breath he took. He could hear noise coming from behind him, probably the undead, who might have been polishing one sharp weapon to behead him with. He was going to die, anyway, one way or the other. A quicker death would be finer, but the sound of her voice was reason enough for him to delay the outcome. He writhed uncomfortably inside his armor; this was far more humiliating than having to endure Smough's taunts. _He_ , brought down by a simple song sung by a voice that made him feel things he didn't know he yearned for. The sweat in his brow was dripping from his temple, and he wanted nothing but to close his eyes and sleep. But on the other hand, how much he had missed this.

Surprisingly for him, he didn’t find it strange when his helmet was being slowly pulled off, and cold breeze hit the scarred tissue of his face. He had kept that on for so long…

But if he could feel all of that, it was sign that he was still alive.

"You gods, always so stubborn." She said too kindly to bear.

Eventually, she let him rest his head on her lap. Gentle fingers raked through his hair, providing him a comfort he didn’t know he could crave. Ornstein blinked drowsily. He couldn’t remember the last time he had allowed someone to touch him like that, if he had at all.

From the position he was in, he could see that she had taken her helmet off as well, but the smile he found on her face he did not understand. What was she smiling for? 

The lyrics of the song remained unknown to him, but the sorrow in the melody did not go unnoticed. She could have been singing to a dying lover. But she was not.

"It's all so quiet now.” She muttered at some point, but he barely heard her. Fingers went to remove the hair that covered part of his face, before warm lips pressed on his forehead. Then, she continued her lullaby, and he kept listening, because it was all he could do.

He tried to move his leg to the side, but he was progressively dettaching from his own body, all tension dissipating.

“I used to own a garden", Ornstein whispered, dragging out the words, "It was warm and... nice. And I saw my mother. She taught me music… she was…”

He didn’t know why he was revealing this. But there was no point on keeping it a secret, even if she was none but a stranger to him.

“I really loved her.”

He found harder and harder to give coherence to his words. His tongue weighed and his voice sounded tired, too adrift to function properly. But her fingers in his hair were a solid comfort he found himself getting lost in. 

“How did you do _that_?" He gestured slightly with his hand, "the visions. Are you a witch? What are you…”

The woman's singing paused, and she laid a finger on his lips, shushing him off. “Relax, dragon slayer. And listen to me. For this world is a cruel one, and one deserves a peaceful rest.”

 

Even after the poison had long reached his heart, and her hand was taking hold of his soul like she owned it, her voice kept the song going on.

And on.

 

She could still feel the touch of his skin in her lips.


End file.
